An Ultimate Guide to Boost Customer Retention with Effective Call Center Services

Have you heard that profit comes from the customer that you succeed in retaining?

A majority of businesses put all their efforts into acquiring new clients, so profit can be increased. That is definitely a good strategy and even necessary for any business. But, what is equally important is retaining your existing customers because you have already gone through the ordeal of finding the right lead, having multiple conversations, and converting that lead into a paying customer. Now, you must encash that lead into more profit paid by that client, as well as, getting referred by that client. This can be done with a high customer retention rate.

There is too much fuss about retaining clients, but nothing to worry about. You can retain customers simply by following some best practices. If you are unsure how to retain customers, then don’t worry. We will share the top tips to increase customer retention in this blog post. Moreover, we will share some more vital information related to client retention.

What is customer retention?

All businesses are not service based, in which customers keep on paying monthly fees to use the services. Thus, often the phenomenon of retaining clients confuses businesses. Thus, here is an easy explanation of this term.

When a customer converts the lead into a paying customer and puts in some more effort to delight that client, so it keeps coming back to that business, it is called customer retention. The customer would purchase from your business only or put your business as a priority when he/ she wants to buy a product or solution that your company offers. It is also called customer loyalty as this increases the number of loyal clients that love to stick to your offerings.

It is neither possible nor feasible to retain customers for a lifetime. Thus, the retention rate is counted for a specific time period, which can be a few months or years.

Here is the formula to calculate the customer retention rate.

Total number of clients at the end of the specific interval – Total number of clients acquired during that specific interval / Total number of clients at the start of that interval.

This gives the exact rate.

What is the ideal customer retention rate?

Commonly, customer loyalty is difficult to earn due to several driving factors even if putting the right efforts to improve customer service can directly increase the value. The customer retention rate in a business is as low as 20% in general. However, the ideal rate is more than 60%. Thus, focus on achieving that with your post sales services or call center services.

Top reasons to focus on retaining clients

There are several reasons to focus on call center services to increase customer loyalty. Let’s explore some of the major reasons.

• According to the statistics shared by Crazzyegg, you have more chances to sell to your existing client compared to a new customer. Moreover, happy customers can pay 31% extra compared to your leads that are yet to be converted into customers.
• According to the same statistical result, when you launch any product or service in the market, your existing and loyal clients are more likely to buy it compared to new clients or leads.
• The cost of retaining an existing customer is 5x to 25x times less than the cost of acquisition of a new customer.
• According to the statistical result shared by Harvard Business School, if a business succeeds in increasing client retention rate by just 5%, then the business can increase its profit up to 95%.
• According to the result shared by Gartner, 20% of your existing and loyal clients will contribute to your 80% of annual revenue.

These statistics are self explanatory and explain the major reasons to put as much effort as possible to retain clients.

What are the top driving factors that can affect the retention rate of clients in a business?

There are several factors that affect the retention rate of customers. Often, the quality of call center services is considered the major factor, but there are multiple other factors, too. Thus, if you are trying to understand how to retain customers, it is necessary to understand what can reduce or increase the loyalty and retention rate of your clients.

Some of the driving factors are briefly explained hereunder:

1. Pre-sales support

Many people keep all their focus on post sales support, but pre-sales support is as important as post-sales support. Your team must be by your customer’s side to handle all the questions and assist customers through different stages of the sales cycle. Usually, businesses handle this part flawlessly to convert a lead into a paying client. However, the focus here should be leaving an irreplaceable first impression that can help in the later efforts put in to increase customer satisfaction.

2. Post-sales support

From this point, the problem or lag usually starts. Businesses often leave clients on their will once the product is sold. However, if you really want to retain customers, you have to improve customer service standards and quality. You need to have a team of customer care agents to answer the queries of clients whenever they feel stuck or need any help. This can be as simple as answering a query or as complicated as giving a walkthrough of a technical product with a product guide. A call center solution is often used to manage this business part and a group of customers handles inbound calls from customers to provide memorable and delightful customer experience.

3. Customer relationship management and nurturing

If your clients don’t come to you with their queries, it doesn’t mean you should forget them. If you want to retain them, you have to use call center services to engage clients that are passively connected to your business. Sending occasional greetings, offers, etc. to clients can help you leverage the advantage of a strengthened bond with your clients and increase your retention rate.

4. Quality of service or product

Even if you have been offering excellent call center services, if your product or service has bugs and issues, then nothing can save you from losing the client. This should be addressed before you convert a lead into a client. Your product or service must be extraordinary in quality and there is no escape window here.  

5. Cost of offering

Your happy clients would be happy to pay more for your services and products if they are of good quality and you are excellent in your customer service game. But, at some points, the cost can make you lose some loyal clients against competitors. You have to be competitive in pricing structure to give no chance to your clients to leave your brand.

6. Competition

The sensibility and competitive spirit of your existing customers can also be one of the major contributors to the success and failure of your retention and loyalty campaigns. If your competitors constantly contact your clients and try to lure them, then you need to have something really good to retain them. You can also not be slouchy with your efforts, else you are likely to miss them and your competitors may take away your happy clients.

Tips to increase customer retention rate

As now you understand the driving factors that can affect your customer loyalty, now is the time to explore more about how to retain customers.

1. Always offer great quality products and services

Everyone loves to get good value for money and your clients are not an exemption here. The first thing any client will measure to evaluate brand credibility is the quality of the offering. Nobody would appreciate getting a buggy or sloppy item if he or she has paid for it. Even if you have given it as part of the New Year discount campaign or any other program at cheaper rates, the quality of the product has to be excellent and not less than that. Your development and research team must focus on customer experience to make this first stunning impression on your clients and enjoy brand loyalty from them.

2. Be available on multiple channels to answer a customer query

Once the quality of service or product is addressed, the next step is to define a strategy related to call center services. You need to go all in to improve customer service, so you can delight your clients. Traditionally, clients used to connect with business brands only through voice calls. But, now, communication has gone beyond just voice calls. Thus, using an omnichannel contact center solution has become inevitable. Your customer service team must provide support across all touchpoints to delight and retain customers.

3. Define a clear and approachable support strategy

Keep customer support hassle free and that will turn in your favor to increase client retention. Don’t make it too difficult to connect with the technical person, agent, or an IVR to get the required help at any point. Define a clear call center strategy and make it available publicly, so your clients can explore the possible and the best ways to connect with customer support agents whenever they need.

4. Collect customer feedback and showcase positive reviews

One of the most vital tips to increase customer retention is to impress other clients with already impressed clients. Take feedback from your clients to learn from their experience to improve customer service. In addition to that, collect reviews, ratings, and testimonials from your existing clients and showcase that publicly. To make these reviews and ratings more credible, ask clients to give them on public domains like Google Reviews, Facebook or LinkedIn pages, etc. This will attract new clients and also give a new perspective to your existing clients and help in increasing the retention rate.

5. Stay connected with clients

Whether you have a business on a hosted model or you are selling some e-commerce products, it is necessary to stay on top of your client service game. For that, you need to stay connected with your clients via different communication channels. For example, you can use social media for retargeting your existing customers that are not interacting with your brand or business. You can also send them some exciting offers to reconnect or purchase something. You also have the option to run a cross selling or up-selling campaign as your loyal clients are likely to purchase faster from your brand.

6. Focus on personalization

If you use a call center software solution, digital advertising platforms, or similar tools to run your business and customer service campaigns, you can actually collect a lot of data from different sources related to how your customers feel about different things and offers. You will also be able to group customers based on their likings, disliking, and several other factors. You need to use this information to create personalized offers, greetings (Refer our Greeter Product), reward programs, and other campaigns. Sending personalized offers and messages will not improve customer service and customer satisfaction, but it will also impress them. This can help in increasing the retention rate even further.

7. Incentivize loyalty

Being loyal to a brand for a long time is honestly a difficult choice for a customer in today’s distractive world. There are so many options available. Your competitors also run their digital marketing campaigns using your own target audience and sometimes keywords as well. Your loyal customers constantly receive alluring offers from other businesses. They may also get disappointed or disconnected from your brand sometimes, but still, if they are with you, then they must be rewarded. In fact, they can be rewarded to be with you at least and constantly give you business or keep your retention rate high.

You must create loyalty and reward programs for your happy and loyal clients and give them those rewards publically. This can be a great way to promote brand loyalty and advocacy in your clients. In addition to that, you will be able to leverage the advantages of encouraging other clients to be your loyal customers.

8. Use the latest technology

Technology can be your great pal in this game when you are looking for the answer to the question of how to increase customer retention. One of the must incorporate things is technological advancements. You have to use the latest tools and technology that can help you define, run, and execute your campaigns to retain clients.

Following are some of the tools that can help you in increasing retention rate:

• Omnichannel call center software:

  It is one of the must have tools when you want to focus on retaining more customers. This tool lets you connect with your clients across channels, listen to their queries, and answer their issues immediately.

• Social listening:

  We all know how much time consumers spend online on different social networking platforms. All of them do not send direct messages or comments, but they may mention your brand on different social platforms and share their negative or positive remarks. Social listening lets you listen to them and respond back. You can even listen to mentions for your competitors to create a competitive strategy to win more clients along with winning the loyalty of your clients.

• CRM system:

  A customer relationship management solution is definitely a must have to manage all vital details about customers in a digital form. Your agents can use this information to provide a more personalized and reliable customer experience to impress clients and increase retention. You can also get your CRM system integrated into the call center software, so agents can explore details of clients within the dialer system and use it to offer personalized responses to clients during customer care and support calls.

• IT help desk ticketing system:

  If you offer technical products or technical support and you want to increase the retention of your clients, then you will need an IT help desk ticketing system. It will simplify and streamline the management of technical requests coming from clients with higher productive hours of the team as a result. This can help in creating win win situation because you can increase the loyalty of clients. Moreover, you can increase productivity. You can integrate this software with the call center software, too.

There are several other technological tools and software available in the market, which can help in increasing customer satisfaction, impress them, and encourage them to retain your brand. Depending on your business type and budget, you must use these tools.

9. Analytical and reporting tools

Usually, within your technology software, you will get tools like live monitoring, real time statistics, reports, and more. However, if you do not have the right tools for analysis and report generation, then this is the time to invest in it. You cannot keep guessing and continue your efforts to increase the retention rate of customers. You have to analyze data yielded from your client retention and customer service campaigns. You have to identify what is working and what is not. You have to discover the strengths and weaknesses of your customer care and relationship management tips. For all these, reviewing data and reports is necessary and for that, you must have the right tools.

10. Hire the right people

This is the most important thing to retain clients because your team will connect with them and also define strategies to engage clients and improve their retention rate. You must hire the best agents that can be polite and professional while responding to customer queries. Your managerial team should also be skilled to analyze campaigns and improve customer experience. You must hire the right team and constantly train them.

Concluding notes

A majority of businesses focus on customer acquisition, but customer care and retention are equally vital for the growth of the business. In fact, customer retention can help in increasing the profit of the company by reducing cost per sale and increasing profit per sale. Loyal customers can also help in increasing sales and lead generation if you succeed in impressing your clients.

If you are confused with questions about how to retain customers, we have already given you a complete guide to follow that can help you at different stages of this vital business function. You must also have the right and skilled team to meet your and your customer’s expectations. Along with the right strategy and team, you need the right tools.

We, Elision Technologies, have been empowering several businesses with our expertise in different technology tools. In the segment of customer care and service, we have developed several tools that have been empowering different businesses in diversified industry verticals. Your business can be the next happy customer of our company. Our DialShree: Omnichannel Contact Center Solution is one of the most widely used software solutions that have benefited businesses to increase the value of various key performance indicators including the retention rate of customers.

To know more about our technology tools and to book a free demo, get in touch with us Now!